The print brochure continues to be the most important marketing tool for lifelong learning programs, one way to increase its effectiveness is to create brochures that feature certain types of classes or programs and send them to a targeted audience. In recent years, LERN has seen many programs creating specialized brochures to target specific audiences, allowing the program to promote a specific type of programming to an audience that they think it will resonate with. Students also appreciate this technique because it provides them a brochure of programs and classes that fit their interests.
Appealing to DIYers
In 2014, Langara College Continuing Studies from Vancouver, British Columbia took over a hobby oriented night school program that had previously been operated by the Vancouver School Board for the past 100 years. This change coincided with some political turmoil and a teacher strike that lead to a lack of public awareness. To make matters worse, the brochure that the Vancouver School Board used to mail to all households in the city was discontinued. Langara did not have the budget to for a specific mailing to all households for these classes and instead included them within the college-wide continuing studies brochure. The result of this changeover and shift in marketing technique led to very low enrollments in the first year. This led to a realization that the marketing strategy needed to change and the demographics of the hobby class students were very different than the general continuing education students. Therefore it was decided that a separate brochure was needed to draw in the “Do-It-Yourself” type of students.
Before the changeover, the Vancouver School Board would mail out a large, content heavy brochures at a cost of over $300,000. This price far exceeded what Langara could commit to marketing these programs, so a creative solution was required. They decided the new brochure design needed to be compact, easy to read, and ideally have a long shelf life. Also, instead of mailing out the brochure, Langara decided to target key places where “DIY” type students would be most likely to pick up the brochure.
See a PDF of the brochure.
With these challenges in mind, Langara’s Communications and Marketing department was able to produce an attractive 5 x 7-inch hybrid logistical brochure that was aesthetically pleasing, simple, and compact. Though much smaller than the pervious brochure, it was made of high-quality materials and featured a modern, sleek layout. Each page of the brochure was dedicated to a “DIY” topic area, such as cooking, fitness or floristry, and included a description of the topic in general and logistics that included that different titles of classes within that topic. Each page also included a stunning, high-quality image to increase engagement. This strategy allowed for the page count of the brochure to remain low, while being able to list all the classes and keep the project within budget.
Since Langara’s budget didn’t allow them to mail the brochure to all households in the city, they decided to target places where “DIY” type students were likely to pick up the brochure. They decided on guilds, public libraries, community centers, non-profit organizations, DIY fairs, and farmer’s markets, among others. Since the brochure was so targeted in its content, it was much easier to find relevant pickup locations compared to a larger, general brochure. The smaller brochure size also worked well for this distribution technique because the brochures are small enough to fit in your pocket and therefore were much more likely to be picked up than larger, bulky traditional brochures.
As a result of their efforts, Langara was able to increase revenue by 40 percent from 2014 to 2015, and they predict a 60 percent increase between 2014 and the end of fiscal year 2017. Langara’s success is a great example of taking a step back and assessing their situation and creating a brochure and distribution technique that fit a specific need and audience. This out of the box thinking allowed them to turn a program on a downward spiral into a success that continues to grow.
Innovative Design & Content
Joliet Junior College’s STEM Academy “Manufacturing Career Pathways” is another example of a creative brochure that promotes specific programming to a targeted audience. Through a partnership with CITGO Petroleum Corporation, Joliet was given a grant and was charged with creating a print piece to generate interest in various manufacturing careers and promote STEM learning.
See a PDF of the brochure.
Previously, this information was printed on individual black and white flyers for each program and distributed to individuals in a packet of loose flyers. They were not visually appealing and ran the risk of individual flyers getting lost or missed due to the loose packet format. In order to most effectively market these career paths, Joliet decided to produce a single piece that highlighted all the career paths in an attractive and visually stunning format.
Instead of producing a traditional brochure, Joliet decided to create a compact 4 x 9-inch hinged design where eleven “cards” made of glossy, heavy stock paper were connected by a screw in the bottom right corner. Each card represents a deferent career path within the industry and is color-coded to differentiate them. The goal was to produce a unique marketing piece that focused on content but was also visually appealing.
The front of each card features skills and facts about the respective career. It also contains a “Did you Know?” fact about the industry. Each card also has a high-quality image of actual students and instructors, and doesn’t use any stock photography. Joliet felt that these images did a better job conveying real experiences, and the technique has been well received by students.
The back of each card highlights the career pathway for each industry with a flow chart that starts with an academic entry point all the way to the types of employment. These pathways include the types of degree needed, average salaries and the areas of a company who would hire these types of positions. There is also information about how to learn more about classes and start on the career path.
This unique design has received positive feedback both for the content the brochure provides but also the design. The final product is visually appealing and both easy to understand and transport. It provides high school counselors a compact piece that highlights all the different manufacturing career paths in one place, and allows for a prospective student to easily compare career options.
Both Langara College and Joliet Junior College have shown how unique and specialized brochures can help market to specific types of prospective students. They were both able to determine their audience and create a print piece that was able to target them. By focusing on their audience and how they would want to find and digest the information, they were able to increase enrollments and set these programs up for future success.